3 Things Landlords Should Do To Mitigate Loss of Rent

1. Don’t wait. Often, during the course of the tenancy, the tenant can fall behind in rent or is a habitual offender and fails to pay rent in a timely manner. You, as the landlord, hope that it will come any day or the next week, as promised. If the tenant is behind in rental payments, the landlord should start a legal proceeding to evict immediately. In most circumstances, waiting too long to get rent is always detrimental to the landlord. To commence the eviction proceeding, aw requires that adequate legal notice must be provided to the tenant prior to evicting them, which triggers an additional delay in evicting the nonpaying tenant. The property owner continues to lose time and additional rent.

2. Register as a multiple dwelling. If you are in New York City and have a structure with three or more residential units you must register it as a multiple dwelling. This is a prerequisite to renting the premises and is a defense to a nonpayment legal proceeding. Thereby tenant does not pay rent for the period it is not registered as a multiple dwelling. Thus, prior to taking the tenant to court for nonpayment of rent, be careful and verify that your property is registered as a multiple dwelling.

3. Apply for a warrant immediately. You take the tenant to court to evict them, and you settle on a date certain as to when the tenant will vacate and you execute an agreement with the tenant to get possession of the premises on that date. What happens if they don’t leave on the agreed date? Therefore, you must make sure that a warrant of eviction is applied for immediately after the agreement is executed. This way you ensure you are ready and armed to commence the process to evict them when they don’t leave as per the settlement. Application for the warrant, post-agreement, can take up to several weeks and tacks onto the time already spent in court. All this time the landlord does not have possession of the premises and is not receiving any rent.

If you want to discuss your particular facts and determine what the best way to proceed is, give us a call @516-570-4016.